New Delhi: A provision in the draft National Medical Commission Bill of a bridge course for AYUSH doctors to enable them to practice allopathy seeks to address the “acute shortage” of doctors in the country, the government has said.

The health ministry has put up on its website a section ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ about the bill, a move to address concerns of the medical fraternity about various provisions.The bill has been referred to a Parliamentary Standing Committee after it witnessed opposition regarding different provisions from the medical fraternity.

The ministry has also assured that the bridge course would not be unscientific and dangerous.

“NMC will be dominated by allopathic doctors. If all of them unanimously approve a bridge course after due consideration, then there is no reason to assume that it will be unscientific and dangerous.”

The course would be designed in such a manner that it would enable the participants to prescribe a limited set of medicines in a responsible manner,” the ministry said to a question whether the bridge course would be unscientific and dangerous.

It said the NMC bill seeks to fill in the gaps of availability of healthcare personnel by facilitating trained AYUSH practitioners to expand their skill sets through the bridge course and provide preventive and promotive allopathic care.

It also said with growing incidence of non-communicable diseases (NCD), there is a need to provide holistic prevention and treatment of diseases and AYUSH plays an effective role in integrating the preventive and promotive aspect of healthcare.

India has a doctor-population ratio of 1:1655 as compared with the WHO standards of 1:1000.In addition, city doctors are not willing to work in rural areas as can be seen in the urban-rural ratio of doctor density (3.8:1).

“There are 7,71,468 AYUSH practitioners in India who can be leveraged to improve the health access situation of the country,” the health ministry said.

According to the document on the website, there is already a policy for co-locating AYUSH and allopathy to ensure better utilisation of resources.Further, with the government’s target to revamp 1,50,000 sub-healthcentres into health and wellness centres, there is a need of the large human resource to meet this challenge.

Justifying its stand, the ministry said that countries such as Thailand, Mozambique, China and the US have regularised community health workers and non-allopathic health providers into mainstream health services, with improved health outcomes.

Further, it said that various states such as Maharashtra, Assam, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh among others have already amended their acts and permitted AYUSH professionals to practice modern systems and prescribe all modern medicines.

“We also need to take such kind of steps when we have an acute shortage of doctors and specialists. The NMC bill seeks to fill in the gaps of availability of healthcare personnel by facilitating trained AYUSH practitioners to expand their skill sets through a bridge course,” the ministry explained.The bridge course may help address this demand and better utilisation of resources, and make the health sector a bigger provider of employment.

The NMC bill also promotes this through more exposure of such NCD patients to non-allopathic practitioners in addition to allopathic doctors.”Thus, in order to homogenise and regulate the entry of AYUSH professionals towards practising modern medicine through a strict regime, this bill has provided for the clause.”Any bridge course will be introduced only by a unanimous vote as provided in Section 49(4) and hence each one of the allopathic doctors in the NMC will have a veto power,” it said.

“Even if the bridge course is introduced, it will only be for prescribing specified medicines at specified levels. The provision is intended for prescribing a small number of medicines including OTC drugs at the sub-centre/PHC level,” it stated.

The provision to allow doctors pursuing Indian systems of medicine, including Ayurveda, and homoeopathy to practice allopathy after clearing a bridge course has drawn opposition from the doctors’ community with Indian Medical Association sternly protesting it.

Everything they are doing can be considered but after they increase the no.of govt medical colleges .Ayurvedic doctor to MBBS why not increase colleges and make way for more MBBS doctors.13 lakh students sitting for an exam having 20k seats govt and expecting to increase healthcare status.
Coaching institutes make an entire building in a month they can\’t make more medical colleges in an year .Every state needs at least 5 new medical colleges to lessen the shortage .But there will be only a blame game noone would try to solve the root of problem only whitewash it everytime

We all know that self finance MBBD colleges of have lower cut off marks than BAMS govt. colleges….. so that We can not decide which degree holder is more capable to parctice…. We can see many successful. ayush practioners who practicing modern medicine in society.. Because BAMS cousrse comprised of Ayurveda and modern science principles as well…

What is there in Ayush except ASH . Let them prove it is not ASH . Bridge course isa big joke for the sake of baba , Sri sri , swamijis, gurujis, politicians, Ayush companies. All over the world Ayush products are rejected except in Vedic India

If you check the UG and PG merit lists of all States you will see people with low marks join Homeopathy, Ayurvedic courses. Hence the incoming Raw material is of lesser quality. How can you expect this inferior quality people to study the same 18 subjects and then come to par with Higher ranked MBBS/MD students in same 5.5 years.
Another question is we are giving this Bridge course to AYUSH doctors to make them practice Allopathic medicines in Rural areas – does this mean that Poor and Rural people should get low quality of treatment and Better quality of treatment is privilege of Urban and Rich.
Third Question is How will you control upto what level of medicine the doctor will prescribe? There are 100\’s of cases where you are seeing that Quacks are carrying out Abortions, are administering allopathic drugs and in a recent case also giving injections causing HIV infection to almost a complete village.

If merit list of self finance medical collages and government run Ayurved collages is compared , one will find that merit is higher of Ayurved branch then self finance medical colleges and even manu government run dental collages. It itself establishes that,many Ayurved doctors are more intelligent thant many allopathic doctors.

Dear doctor do you know the real meaning of quack?? & can u assure me that none of the so & so modern medicine practioners prescribe ayush medicine? If so why do you people prescribe it & many of allopathic hospitals are hiring ayush doctor & what for it is!??? If you think rural ppl should get health care,,of course all the ppl in this world deserves it,,,but then why don\’t you ppl go ter & do services?? Don\’t underestimate any system of medicine,,. If you do so you are not fit for it.

All along these ayush fellows spoke against mainstream scientific medicine wrongly some call allopathy. Now the same honorable ayush fellows want bridge course to practice modren medicine . Even these fellows want to perform ultrasound , report on radiology ,endoscopy etc . It is a big joke. Watch this gentle man Ram dev in you tube what bunkam he speaks about modren medicine and also his propagation of his company and the products . He is preaching ignorance and questionable remedies in the name of ayurvedha . Why no one is questioning the obscurantism ???.

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